


How The Mighty Have Fallen

by Maddginger



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fear, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, Love/Hate, Rescue, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 20:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddginger/pseuds/Maddginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because he was never a client</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first night they spent together was nothing particularly epic. I mean- for _them_ it was a milestone because they were who they were.

But it wasn’t particularly fiery or passionate. They were in mourning and needed someone to hold onto… the inordinate amount of Kaylee’s homemade wine both had imbibed didn’t exactly slow things either.

In the morning she realizes he’s not a client. And then, staring at his sleeping face beside her, the rough and tumble so strange against the silk and “civilized” she wishes he was.

He mumbles in his sleep, at once painful and yearning. It’s her name, and she knows it. 

But he’s not a client.

* * *

 

It starts out with mostly sex and arguments. Not necessarily in that order, and very occasionally at the same time. Though usually one sparks the other. It shouldn’t amuse her, but it does.

She never asks for any remuneration. Somehow he makes up for any amounts of credits she could ask for.

It’s in his touch and half-smile and the way the calluses on his fingers feel against her too soft skin. In all the times they wake up together after Miranda- with him curled around her like a shield, protecting her from whatever the ‘verse might send after them.

He’s safety and warmth and all those things she associates with home. Almost an addiction, and something in her that is even stronger than her training cannot- no- _will not_ give him up.

* * *

 

It was before the first time, and after Miranda.

Miranda. It was like a new form of measuring time- it’s how they referred to things-

“Oh that was two weeks before Miranda-“ Or “That was seven months after Miranda-“  
The only one who never said the word _Miranda_ was Zoe. 

She had been living in a state of numb denial since those fated days aboard their Serenity. 

Kaylee had asked Inara if this was what Zoe had been like during the war.

Mal, who had been sitting somewhere nearabouts- as he always was lately- answered softly, in a voice that Inara recognized from anytime he spoke to their oddly naïve mechanic.

“She’s a bit worse this time around. But close enough.”  
Kaylee shifted and played with her hair, the thoughts in her mind clear as day on her face.

“When do we get _our_ Zoe back?”  She asks innocently.

“We may not Meimei. When you lose something that ‘cha love. It hurts deep. Makes everything feel cold and lost and adrift.”  
“Like you… when Inara left?” Kaylee’s face is completely oblivious to the discomfort she’s just caused on both her Captain and Inara’s part continuing to tinker with a part of the engine that had fallen apart _again_. Or perhaps she does notice their half-glances and awkward fiddling with whatever’s close- perhaps that was _exactly_ what she had intended in the first place.

Mal manages to get a hold of himself first, passing a half glance to the Companion who is pointedly ignoring him. Yet acknowledging the fact that he had passed a glance.

Something is said there, merely by the way that they react _together._

He’s blushing because he feels like she found out something she didn’t already know. 

She always knew. This was just confirmation, as if she needed confirmation.

Kaylee gleefully announces that she’s going to go have sex with Simon. 

Mal winces, and Inara feels for both men and their puritan sensibilities when it comes to this subject.

If Simon were here himself, he would have blushed scarlet then looked a mix between excited and apologetic.

Then she’s gone. Leaving the two jaded individuals with their wires exposed.

“Is she going to be okay?” Inara asks, because she cares and because she wants to talk about someone who’s _not_ in the room right now.

Mal doesn’t even react. No sparkle, no witty comment. Only defeat. And she’s astonished to find that he is showing a side that he hides so carefully behind supposedly unbeatable optimism.

Showing to the whore that which he cannot show the rest.

It terrifies her and exhilarates her to see him so broken.

“I don’t know.” He replies, and drops one head to his hand and the other scratches at the edge of a worn suspender. “All we had t’protect last time was each other, and we didn’t lose that. Even when lost all the other stuff…”

Inara suddenly wonders when Malcolm Reynolds got old? If he had had those wrinkles- ever since the battle of Serenity Valley? These seemed new though, since she left a little over six months ago.

He’s finishing his thought now, and she forces her contemplative thoughts back to him.

“The more I see of the verse…” He says to the floor. “The more I wish I never left Shadow.”

But then again, there was very little of Shadow left inhabitable- which is where it started in the first place. Jayne hadn’t been far off when he’d pointed out Mal’s madness.

Speak of the devil- the giant and his newest groupie- namely River Tam stomped and bounced into the common area outside the infirmary. 

Mal’s face brightened falsely, once again becoming the captain.

It hurts her for him. He is perhaps the only person in the ‘verse that is able to stir such intense feelings in a heart that was locked so pleasantly away years ago.

“Persephone, after we finish this gig on Beaumonde.” He responds when they ask where to next. “Badger says he’s got a job for us.”  
The entire crew grumbled about this turn of events, ranging from the irritation of working with a man like Badger to the extreme amount of Alliance troops that would be snooping around for them.

The only ones that didn’t say anything were Zoe and Inara.

His mate was steely eyed and silent. Inara watched him with something like worry.

In the end though, his word was law; River was sent to the front to pilot the ship.

It was only when she had her hands on the workings of the ship that she seemed completely lucid, and though they would never say such things in front of Zoe but she was turning out to be nearly as good as Wash had been.

A leaf on the wind


	2. Chapter 2

Inara scheduled a client on Beaumonde. 

For the first time since Miranda. 

The entire time, she counted the minutes until he would leave. Completely and utterly betraying the training, which had been driven into her like ramrods of steel.

It wasn’t the client’s fault either- he was young and polite and clean and soft. Gentlemanly and handsome in every.

He didn’t say ain’t and he probably had never been near work or lowlifes in his entire life.

He owned her for the night, and he knew it. Treated her like one of those gorramn geisha dolls with the big wobbly heads.

When the bell rang she was thankful. Altogether too ready for him to make those ridiculous cow-eyes at her and ask her to run away with him.

And he did, as per the usual. 

 

* * *

 

It was late when she returned, and the Captain’s door/hatch/ladder was closed tightly with no shine of light coming from round the cracks.

This depressed her. And in all ways it shouldn’t.

A loud disgusting noise thundered down the obscenely long hallway. A light was on under Wash and Zoe’s room— _Zoe_ ’s room.

Inara’s heart plummeted slightly at this thought. Worry for her friend made her gracefully move down the metal tube and push the door open enough to see the mate frantically spewing the dinner she’d eaten into the tiny toilet.

“Zoe, are you alright?”

Another lengthy heave, the Companion had to fight the urge to look away- but for friendship’s sake- she kept her gaze firmly locked upon tortured form of her friend.

“I’m just…” Another depressingly intense heave. “A little space-sick is all.”  
This didn’t ring true, there was no one more suited for space than Zoe- Mal was the only other person who seemed more at home in the Black than on a planet.

“Are you _pregnant_?”

The Companion didn’t mean to sound so completely and utterly horrified. But being pregnant was one of her order’s highest sins. There were so many obvious, easy ways of preventing said issue. Ways that they had been forced to memorize in class. 

Zoe’s eyes flickered to the beautiful women’s face.

“Yes.” She replied, with an uncommon _Serenity_. “Wash gave me a parting gift after all.”  
“You’re pleased?” Again, the shock was plain on the younger woman’s face.

“That I am. Indeed, I’m as pleased as a woman might ever be.”

And then there was a smile, the first since Miranda.

Inara turned to leave.

“Wash and I knew each other over a year before we got married.”

The woman’s low voice rumbled slightly, tearfully, wearily. Inara had had a terrible night so far, and she wasn’t quite sure if she could manage to be a sympathetic listener tonight. To stow all her feelings and give to other people.

“Zoe- you should get some sleep-“  
“Let me speak my piece Inara Serra.”

She turned to find a very intent looking Zoe Washburne staring her down.

“I loved him for two years before I married him. I put it off- because it would make things _complicated._ ” Zoe sighed miserably. “I listened to Malcolm ruttin Reynolds- listened to _him_ tell me that interpersonal relationships betwixt people onboard ships would _never_ work. I wasted… all that time.”  
“I don’t see how that has anything to do with-“  
“Imagine… falling in love with a man you’ve known for God-knows-how long- never putting mind to the fact that one day he might up and get his sorry self killed- If Mal died tomorrow- or ten years from now. Imagine how you’d feel knowing you could have spent that time with him.“  
The Companion paled beneath her heavy makeup, white as a ghost and shocked as a newborn child. Completely and utterly exposed for a moment.

Zoe continued undaunted.

“Now I know that the two of you have some sorta unspoken something that keeps you from each other- and I’m usually not the interferin’ sort. If you feel anything for Mal… anything close to what he feels for you. I am beggin’ you to give him a chance. Cause you and I both know he’s not gonna go peaceful like- like he always said, somebody’s carryin’ his bullet. He’s one of those men who’s not meant to pass on in his sleep- so take the time you have now and use it wisely.”  
Zoe had never considered herself a good maker of speeches. She’d always left Mal to that sort of thing, as he was awfully good at rousing the blood when the chips were down.

At this point, she was finding it difficult to see what exactly she had roused in the Companion.

A few moments passed. Inara’s mouth opened then closed, then repeated the gesture two more times.

“I need to go…” She said finally, Zoe let her. Half because she knew the other woman needed to think about things, and half because her stomach was once again rebelling urgently.

 

 

* * *

 

As luck would have it, Mal heard her exit Zoe’s room. He had been checking on the status of things, as he was wont to since the inception of _Serenity_. Though both he and Zoe know he’s been checking since the Valley from which their girl got her name.

Because he’s got a guilt that has to do with survival, and the strange sense of wakefulness you develop when more than one person has been out to kill you and take their time doing it.

Something stops him from calling out to her immediately, startled to see his graceful Inara practically fall out the door and stand gasping in the hallway.

It takes her a good 30 seconds to calm. Regain the Companion’s composure, then she slips to her shuttle. 

He follows her, even though he’s uncertain why.

 

* * *

 

He knocks, and she thinks that it might be the first time he’s ever paid her the courtesy.

“ _Quing jin_.” She calls out, immediately, because she’s not expecting _him_. Because of the knock itself.

He sees her dismayed surprise, hidden almost instantly behind a stony mask of charity.

“Mal.” She says. Wooden in both visage and voice. “Come to slander my whoring ways?” 

Mostly because she’s spoiling for a fight, hoping that she’ll manage to get through this without something happening that she’ll regret.

He looks like he’s been slapped. They’ve had something similar to cordiality for the past few weeks. Something like the center holding, and this is obviously a trap.

“No.” He says, still like a little stunned by her venom. “I was just gonna come see if you were alright…”  
“Why would you think otherwise?” She snaps, the walls hastily built around her newly exposed heart being torn down by the concern threaded through his words.

“You looked a little spooked in the hallway- I was just checkin-“  
“I don’t need someone to look out for me Captain. I just need-“ And her voice cracks just slightly. It’s all he needs to hear, and he’s holding her close, against her will, training and her very core she grabs hold to the front of his shirt. Taking deep breaths of the heady, manly scent that always seems to follow him sobbing into his shirt.

This is his purpose in the world, to protect. If nothing else, he’ll protect her to the end of the ‘verse itself.

She cries into his shirt, for Wash and Book and for Zoe and the baby, and a little for Mal and herself. 

Mal Reynolds just does what comes natural, and strokes her hair and whispers calm, soothing sentences in Mandarin. Being the rock as the woman he loves so desperately comes apart at the seams in his arms. 

Of course, she doesn’t know that he loves her. She doesn’t realize how gut-wrenchingly painful it is for him to stand by while her scent tangles in his nostrils and she goes so soft and needy in his arms.

“Do you need to go back to Sihon?” He asks, and it’s maybe the hardest thing he’s ever had to ask in his life. Knowing that if she answers like she did after the bordello, he’ll have to go through Serenity Valley and Niska’s Torture and Miranda and Wash and Book’s death all over again. It’s not fair that he’s already died once on her behalf, and now he’s offering himself up to do it again.

Like a gorramn lamb to slaughter.

The Companion stiffens in his arms, but makes no move to step away.

“No.” She sniffles into his shirt.

A thousand years drop off his mind at that single word.

“Then what _do_ you need?” He asks, thinking of all the various ways he’s damned himself with that query. “If it’s within my power I’ll abide by it.”  Mal commits himself there, cursing and praying all the while.

“You.” She tells him, stepping back and staring into his eyes with something kin to tenderness.

Mal chokes and swallows.

“Saywha?” It amuses her and she giggles despite herself. Relieved to find that her heart is still the dominant, despite her mind promising herself that this is just because they’re both grieving and needy and he’s a _friend._

Her giggle is misinterpreted and the vulnerability he exhibits vanishes behind the cynical veil.

“Oh so it’s funny to you to play with a man’s feelings. Sure it’s a hoot-“  
 He shouts at her, unnerved to find the smile still on his Companion’s face.

“No joke.” She tells him surely, “I want you.”

He checks her eyes again for some sign of double dealing, scared to find nothing but sincerity.

“Inara,” He backpedals. “I can’t take advantage- you’re just grieving-“  
“Yes I am.” She answers, forcing herself to be truthful. Ignoring the little voice that says she’s taking Zoe’s advice, ignoring the ticking clock that constantly reminds her that death is coming.

 “I want you. I’m old enough and wise enough to know what I want. Now do something before I change my mind.”  
Apparently, he needs no more encouragement. Making the mistake for both of them and kissing her gently.

She automatically begins to respond, testing him. Feeling all his emotions through this simple embrace.

Once a Companion always a Companion.

There is need, stronger and deeper than she’s ever felt since becoming a Companion.

Starting gentle, then building. Never once treating her like a doll- like a commodity. She’s a woman, and for all his faults he knows how to manage this. It surprises her to find that she never needs to lead him through the process, that she was never the one in charge in the first place.

He worships her, tender and demanding and loving.

 _He is a client._ She whispers to herself.

But he isn’t.

And when they lay spent in the aftermath of their improbable mistake. Neither speak. She smells like him now; his scent is burned into her skin. Inara allows herself to revel in the feeling of pleasing a man she actually- no.

She can’t admit that. To admit such a thing would mean the end of her career.

And yet to her current frame of mind, giving said career up means nothing in the light of being able to spend her nights with a man that- 

with someone who-

with Mal.

He plays with her hair, comfortable in their touch. 

When they sleep, they sleep deeply, and she wakes with him curled around her. And she is at peace.

Serenity, within and without.


End file.
